Please check out the incredible schedule, choose the film you want to see the most, grab your discounted ticket (students get 25% off), and post a thorough, thoughtful response here which lets us know the following:
- The title of the film you saw and why you chose to see it
- A 1-2 sentence logline describing the film
- What you thought of the film conceptually/dramatically (in terms of its Authenticity, Authority, Ethics/Responsibility, Evidence, Argument, etc.)
- What you thought of the film aesthetically (in terms of its use of camera, editing, sound/music, etc.)
- Any additional details about the experience you had of going to see the film (in terms of audience response, the screening venue, etc.)
To receive extra credit, be sure to upload your reflection here by no later than 5pm next Tuesday April 4.
I'm planning to go myself, so here's hoping I see you there!
ReplyDeleteI chose to see The Island and the Whales because I genuinely was interested in the environmental justices and mishaps that would occur when perspectives collide about traditional whale hunting (with cultural bias) and the concept of killing such a magnificent creature. This was also one of those films that I felt like I shouldn’t have worn my save the whales shirt to….
In this film, Mike Day decided to follow descendents of vikings in the Faroe Islands to see them live out their ubiquitous lives, especially when it came to hunting whales and seabirds. Throughout the film, we learn about culture, environmental and social injustices, and the affect a group of hunters can have on a global scale.
I honestly thought the film was authentic regarding the overall tradition of the viking descendants. While, I am an animal activist and support the saving of our oceans, I understand that these people came from a long line of eating and hunting whales, which is why the narrative of this piece seemed genuine to me. I asked Mike Day why it was crucial for him to add the story of Huldufolk. (these are mythical people who are deeply rooted with nature & run through the forests & are not fans of light sources- they are known as the hidden people) He told the audience that he deliberately added this belief to the film because so many believed these folk existed among them and that was the reason they would have a good outcome when it came to hunting whales. He also told us that even higher educated people like scientists and doctors in the are believed them to be true. I think him adding this and literally showing spears going through whales made the audience feel like we were part of the lifestyle he lived out...for four freakin year omg….
There was a major scene in the film where they brought the American Sea Shepherds (a group of marine animal activists) to the island, but the people who have inhabited the island for quite some time seemed to be perplexed by the overwhelming sense of needing to save the pilot whales. At one point, police actually came to arrests the Sea Shepherds for trying to stop the massive hunting of whales. While most see this as wtf that is so wrong, these hunters see it as we see killing a cow or pig for food (which i personally see as immoral…) This was a continuous argument throughout the entire film though. Should we kill whales or not? Since my minor is environmental studies, I did some more research about how legitimate and necessary the argument actually was for both sides.
For starters, yes, whales are a magnificent species. No one can deny this, not even people who hunt them. (I do not concur with any killing of any animal.) However, the pilot whale they were hunting are not an endangered species. To be completely honest, the animals they should have worried about were the Puffins, which did join the endangered species list in 2015. Neither of the animals were wasted either. They did eat the entire thing, and then stuffed them for consumerism purposes. The real problem is how killing of these animals will affect their ability to be sustainable. Yes, they are 100% more sustainable than the US or China, but with the global climate change crisis, they are affecting the amount of biodiversity in our oceans. As the earth heats, our waters rise and slowly increase in temperature. Any larger mammal, such as the pilot whale species, will not even bother to mate or produce any offspring if they know the environment they are in is not safe. With a smaller whale population due to both climate change and hunting, this will leave an overabundance of simple prey in the food chain of the ocean. This will include things like plankton, which have also been decreasing in population do to climate change. Humans tend to not eat whales or plankton as much as other ocean creature do. Yes, this may not seem to be a problem to us, but it is. Unfortunately. Without those two crucial creatures, we will have a lack of readily available and scalable fish for ourselves, meaning that without whales to eat a large portion of plankton or krill and without plankton being a viable source of energy for the fish we want to catch for ourselves, we will see an overall depletion of our oceans and overall ecosystem. (because then we would have to find a different source of food...which we would probably deplete that population too...and that will keep happening until we have no resources to ourselves...which is why people should just be vegetarians...or vegans..anyway)
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ReplyDeleteEven in the film, we can see how humans completely fuck with the Earth. There was a great statement made by one of the fishermen/whale hunter, and he basically said that before us, we had our ancient ancestors literally living off the land and taking what they needed from it, not just whatever they wanted. He continued to state that before any “modern human ways” came about, our planet was not polluted. It’s a bummer to know that is actually so true. Another evident part in the film was that a majority of these people had high levels of mercury in their bodily functions. This was due to the amount of plastic and debris found in the animals that they ate. Mercury has the propensity to be obtained by fish species that are higher up on the food chain like whales. The amount of it in their bodies is appropriate for them, and it is mostly found it the muscle and fats. When people eat them, the mercury will bioaccumulate. This in turn will lead people to have sensory impairment and lack of coordination. SO like idk how much the doctors of this town knew about this, but it will for sure affect every single person there within 2 years or sooner….and that is upsetting.
Aside from that, I fell in love with the cinematography. I geeked out...like OMFG it was beautiful. I cannot complain about it at all. I was blown away that a documentary maker could make a film so beautiful. I can’t even explain how phenomenal his skills are behind the camera. This could have been a silent film and the audience could have picked up the story so quickly just because every shot was so thoroughly thought out that it created the story….and like idek if he meant to do that purposefully.
Also, I really just enjoyed the people there. They were so into it and a majority of them were old, but that’s cool because they were super nice. On a slight digression, I tried to compare this to Blackfish and that was so mentally challenging for me. Overall, I enjoyed the experience, and I’m glad I was able to find the time to see this film. It really makes you think about humans feel so entitled to every little thing that we can see and touch, but the plaent was here before any of us..
I attended the Doc10 Film Festival on Friday to see “Whose Streets”, directed and produced by Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis. I was so excited and was extremely lucky that my good friend had extra tickets.
ReplyDeleteActivists Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis follow St. Louis County residents after the Ferguson uprising when unarmed teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed by police. In the days that follow, we see the community of families, teachers, and musicians reach the breaking point and fight for justice.
I didn’t know much about what happened in Ferguson, MO when the incident of Michael Brown happened, however, I knew that it entailed an injustice and violation of human rights by police brutality. Prior to watching this film, I decided that I should not read up on the issue too much because I wanted to feel emotion while watching it, because I feel the best way to educate yourself is by witnessing evidence with your own eyes, which allows one to create an opinion of their own. I knew this was going to inform me even further of the black struggle, which is something I am very interested in and passionate about. This film did just that--I was sad, angry, and empowered all at the same time while watching it.
This film was 100% ethical and authentic. The way the filmmakers chose to film was in a way that showed the events happening in real time. They dug deep enough into their subjects stories (they followed about 3 people/families) that the evidence was apparent, but not too personal that their lives were unethically violated. Yes, there were some pretty intense moments, but it’s completely necessary to show those moments in a story like this. It’s important to recognize that there is another point of view to the Ferguson uprising, that of which is on the authority side, but the footage proves what message the filmmakers wanted to portray and that the story can be understood without any interviews from the opposing side, I believe. Aesthetically, I liked the simplicity. The filmmaker’s didn’t use too many different mediums, but that’s okay. They used quotes to introduce chapters of the story, which allowed the film to flow very well.
This was an amazing experience, and although depressing, extremely empowering. After listening into the Q&A with filmmakers and other Chicago activists, I felt like I could leave the screening content and clear of what is expected of our generation and those to come. It was a safe space that we could openly speak with everyone about the uncomfortable experience we all had.
Casting Jonbenet Notes
ReplyDeleteSo this past weekend my friend Tully and I attended DOC10 to see Casting Jonbenet after viewing the trailer on YouTube and becoming instantly intrigued. What initially caught my attention was the fact that the director chose to have multiple people play and be casted the same roles in the Ramsey family so that there were 15 different Patsy Ramseys and 10 Jonbenets.
After the screening, Casting Jonbenet became the best documentary that I have ever seen. Good documentary filmmakers strive to create works that are unbiased and I believe director Kitty Green did an absolute phenomenal job of telling this tricky story without much bias. Without any archival footage whatsoever, or a clear image of the Ramsey family, Kitty’s film became a story about a community rather than the tragedy itself. The raw b-roll that was used throughout the film was structured like standard talking heads but would change into beautiful and more cinematic shots as the actors prepared for the final scene.
The talking heads were in no way boring, which I found incredibly interesting because static talking heads usually make me lose interest. At first, I was confused with the amount of people swapping stories (because my friend and I ran in slightly late!) but by the end of the film, it was almost like each person had embodied their roles and became one with each other. It might make me sound super “hippyish” to say, but I feel that this documentary had a completely circular structure and I felt like I had experienced the Jonbenet tragedy as well as multiple lifetimes due to the amount of layered storytelling within the film.
Kitty Green was at the screening and provided a small Q&A which was awesome! She said she didn’t want to say anything prior to the viewing because as a young female director people might assume things like she doesn’t understand how things work and might judge before viewing and I understand this, yet I know that after that viewing, everyone in the audience considered the director a genius.
What was interesting was the way Kitty was able to take a step back from the horrendous atrocity with lighthearted b-roll. One of my favorite scenes was when the little boys were wacking watermelons with flashlights and initially I was laughing, but there was this feeling of undeniable horror when I realized that the watermelon represented a six year old’s skull.
This film was also a lot more emotional than I thought it would be. I found myself getting teary-eyed multiple times about both the death of Jonbenet and the emotional stories like a woman playing Patsy describing how she had lost three children. I laughed, smiled, cried, and felt sickened all in one film and I think that’s proof of how insanely good this documentary is!
Another choice that I found to be rather experimental was how Kitty chose to reveal the set and the actual people working on the film as they shot certain cinematic shots and put makeup on the actors. One of my favorite shots was the final scene, which was a slow track shot of the entire “Ramsey house” that was followed by a still wideshot of the people filming the trackshot. Shots like this were difficult to comprehend because they felt so meta but also natural because the audience understood going in that they were watching, essentially, the casting of Jonbenet.
Casting Jonbenet was so Incredibly well-done and I am definitely going to watch it again and tell others about it!
I decided to go see Casting JonBenet with a friend of mine. I did not know much about the story beforehand and was excited to see how the director, Kitty Green, would tell the story. The majority of the information presented was told through talking heads. Throughout the film I found myself disappointed and yearning for more visually. At the end I talked to my friend about it, and they brought up a good point: there are not very many documentaries that make the aesthetic choice to use a majority of talking heads. We both went on to agree that this made the director's choice unique in that way. The story became more about the people acting in the film and less about JonBenét. The reenactments of this film reminded me of “The Act of Killing” because at times the audience, me included, were laughing at something that at first seemed funny, but then the actual meaning sunk in and it turned uncomfortable. One example was when the “dads” were acting out the scene when JonBenét is found in the basement. It was funny to see the different people's interpretations while acting but uncomfortable to know they were reenacting very serious moments. After the film was over, there was a Q & A with Kitty Green. One piece of information she expressed that I found intriguing was she had no interaction with the actual Ramsey family in the making of this film.
ReplyDeleteI decided to attend the Casting Jonbenet screening on Saturday night, because initially Halonah and I were both planning on going together, but nonetheless, the film looked really interesting to me.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea what the film was going to be about before watching it. I did watch the trailer online before, but that didn’t give a great amount of detail as to the main storyline of the film for me. The film seemed to carry an unbiased approach of who actually killed the six-year-old girl. It was covered in all angles using interviews and scenes that several different actors were in. I thought it was unique to find this particular documentary to have no archival footage used. The director did a Q&A after the film, and it was apparently intentional for her to use no archival footage at all. I liked her authority of how the story was told in this film. For aesthetics, I thought the camera shots were really crisp, and the overall film almost came off as not being a documentary; it was just so modern, and clean.
My experience of seeing the film was great. I was the first person to arrive into the theatre, so I had some extra time to find my seat. That was a first! I think that the story also started off a bit confusing, as to understanding the actors and storyline that the film was going in. The audience seemed to enjoy it. There were some funny moments. One that stands out is this police officer that was talking about sex toys for some reason in an interview style. He was just an interesting character, so that was fun to watch. Also, another one was when they had little boy's smash a watermelon in place of smashing a 6-years-old head. At first this was really funny, and then it became really dramatic because of the actual realization of what this test was for.
I overall really enjoyed Casting Jonbenet and would definitely recommend to others/watch it again!!!